Dick Durbin: Are bloggers and tweeters entitled to constitutional protection?

Share By Doug Powers  May 26, 2013 05:53 PM

**Written by Doug Powers

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin has in the past had a very subjective and abstract view of the Constitution, and on Fox News Sunday he once again wondered which people might be entitled to constitutional protections and which people might not:

Youve raised an important point and I heard Sen. Graham call for special counsel, Durbin said. Im not ready to do this at this moment. I would like to know if Holder has any conflict in here beyond what we heard when it comes to the Fox case.

But here is the bottom line  the media shield law, which I am prepared to support, and I know Sen. Graham supports, still leaves an unanswered question, which I have raised many times: What is a journalist today in 2013? We know its someone that works for Fox or AP, but does it include a blogger? Does it include someone who is tweeting? Are these people journalists and entitled to constitutional protection? We need to ask 21st century questions about a provision that was written over 200 years ago.

Does Dick think the First Amendment only covers journalists (and apparently only ones who write with quills on parchment)?

If Durbin ever bothered to actually read the Constitution hed know that the Founders knew all too well the danger of having somebody like, well, Dick Durbin, ever ending up as the arbiter of whos entitled to rights.

There is no such thing as THE PRESS in the sense that term is used by elitist Progressives today  some sort of elite group whose members are allowed preferential treatment under law. In the Constitutional sense, the press is a technological device for disseminating information.

One cannot be a member of the press. One can only have access to a press.

Any device which enables one to state and publicize ones views is a press, whether it be moveable type, offset, TV, radio, or the Internet. We all have free access to the press, meaning we have the right to pay any provider who wishes to sell us access.

In this regard, no CBS anchor has anymore claim to special treatment for being part of the press than does any blogger.

How will a tyrannical government manifest itself? Watch TV, and listen to the 0bama regime and it's sycophants. Whether it's Fast & Furious, the IRS or Benghazi, they all act like Goebbels predicted they would.

Pick one as the catalysis, either Ft. Sumter or Arch Duke Ferdinand. Your call.

I’ve always thought that politicians shouldn’t be entitled to constitutional protections. That would go a long way towards stopping their attacks against the American people. Especially during these dark days in America.

18
posted on 05/26/2013 5:14:58 PM PDT
by FlingWingFlyer
(If you think ObamaCare is a train wreck, wait until you see the amnesty bill.)

Let me help you out, Dick. The “journalists” of 200 years ago were everyday citizens just like today. You don’t have to be corralled by a big time “news” media corporation to enjoy your rights to a free press. Anyone who can afford a press is a member of the free press. Same now as it was 200 years ago.

*703 We are unwilling to embark the judiciary on a long and difficult journey to such an uncertain destination. The administration of a constitutional newsman’s privilege would present practical and conceptual difficulties of a high order. Sooner or later, it would be necessary to define those categories of newsmen who qualified for the privilege, a questionable procedure in light of the traditional doctrine that liberty of the press is the right of the lonely pamphleteer who uses carbon paper or a mimeograph just as much as of the large metropolitan publisher who utilizes the latest photocomposition methods.

Cf. In re Grand Jury Witnesses, 322 F. Supp. 573, 574 (ND Cal. 1970). Freedom of the press is a “fundamental personal right” which “is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. . . . The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.” Lovell v. Griffin, 303 U. S. 444, 450, 452 (1938). See also Mills 705*705 v. Alabama, 384 U. S. 214, 219 (1966); Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 111 (1943). The informative function asserted by representatives of the organized press in the present cases is also performed by lecturers, political pollsters, novelists, academic researchers, and dramatists. Almost any author may quite accurately assert that he is contributing to the flow of information to the public, that he relies on confidential sources of information, and that these sources will be silenced if he is forced to make disclosures before a grand jury.[40]

just because you’re a govt employee doesn’t mean you know jack about the Constitution

‘freedom of speech’ isn’t limited to print. I could be standing on a street corner... sending smoke signals from my backyard... or communicating via sound waves across a wire... it’s all MY speech, how I choose to express myself.

someone needs to send this idiot to remedial Constitution studies for a month

23
posted on 05/26/2013 5:22:00 PM PDT
by sten
(fighting tyranny never goes out of style)

Bloggers are now an enemy of the state. They have ravaged the false flag at Newtown. (Yes I said it, when you see the first drop of blood - please lets all know. Until then it seems to be a smallish Operation Northwoods style event.)

Durbin would seem to be an enemy of the People. The lines are getting more defined.

Clearly, Mr. Durbin is either ignorant of the people and events surrounding America's founding period, including those who circulated ideas within the society, or he is deliberately attempting to confuse citizens in order to enslave them to an ideology foreign to the American Constitution.

Does he not understand that it is freedom of conscience and freedom of expression, the free circulation of ideas, and strict limitations on coercive powers which might be assumed by elected and appointed government officials over those precious freedoms which the First Amendment was intended to protect.

During America's founding period, the Committees of Correspondence, the broadsides, the pamphlets, the essays written over a pseudonym, the newspapers, and any other then-modern method of communicating those ideas were protected from the hand of any who, like him and his fellow "progressives," would seek to limit free speech and political discourse in America.

Technology has changed how circulation of ideas may occur; however, now, as then, human nature and the desire of some men to dominate and control the consciences and free expression of other men has not changed, and likely will not change.

In America, however, a once-wise and knowledgeable citizenry decided that it would structure its own form of self-government, placing those who governed in positions of subservience to themselves, under a written Constitution which excluded their Creator-endowed and unalienable rights from that government's purview.

The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. These indeed have been historic weapons in the defense of liberty, as the pamphlets of Thomas Paine and others in our own history abundantly attest. The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion. What we have had recent occasion to say with respect to the vital importance of protecting this essential liberty from every sort of infringement need not be repeated.

It is absolutely unacceptable to single out any political group  right, left or center, Durbin said. It goes back to the worst days of the Richard Nixon administration.

But Sen. Durbin had different thoughts on the issue in 2010. Then Durbin singled out Crossroads GPS and other 501(c)(4)s for extra IRS scrutiny just a few weeks before the 2010 election for President Barack Obamas former Senate seat.

"I write to urge the Internal Revenue Service to examine the purpose and primary activities of several 501 (c)(4) organizations that appear to be in violation of the law," he said.

He says "It is absolutely unacceptable to single out any political group."

Which is EXACTLY what he did to help Obama get elected.

Last week, Durbin compared the IRS thug tactics to the worst days of Richard Nixons administration. But Durbin has been publicly involved in pressuring the IRS to investigate conservative groups since the targeting practice began in 2010.

And Durbin has been an anti American un-Constitutional thug for decades.

What I have a problem with is durbin being protected for legislation written which he votes for, in the affirmative, and then the Nation's People pay for not once but over and over and over for duplication and taxes for his obsessive compulsive disorder which creates pain and suffering for the citizenry yet durbin is afforded protection via exemption for his treachery and the People are not afforded the same protections.

47
posted on 05/26/2013 5:50:07 PM PDT
by no-to-illegals
(Scrutinize our government and Secure the Blessing of Freedom and Justice)

this administration has shown us all how they regard the law and think we should be run more like a dictatorship and yet we also have a media which though targeted by this admin they still defend this admin.

If people saw the front pages, heard the facts and understood what the hell is happening to this country then there would be massive protests and calls for Obama and his hench men to step down.

Instead the media covers for them , the sheep goes along with all this queer, radical left, agenda, the black community hasn’t got a clue and the left defends this but they also show their hypocrisy because we all know that if a republican did all of this they would be outraged.

A message to the liberals and all the homosexuals.

You think this is alright because you follow blindly your messiah but you need to ask yourself this.
If the right did this would you still remain silent and defend this?
Hell no and that is why you lot show us why the country is going to crap. You can’t put your bias and voting for a letter aside and think of the country instead and the rule of law.

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